Matthew T. Mangino
GateHouse Media
March 9, 2018
Prison inmates age at an accelerated rate when compared to
people living outside the prison walls. The health of a 50-year-old person in
prison is comparable to the health of a 65-year-old. That is not a good thing,
especially when you consider nearly every state and the federal government are
seeing an increase in elderly prisoners.
According to The Pew Charitable Trust, in Virginia for
instance, 822 state prisoners were 50 and over in 1990, about 4.5 percent of
all inmates. By 2014, that number had grown to 7,202, or 20 percent of all
inmates.
The aging population and increasing number of inmates with
chronic health conditions in prisons have led states and the federal government
to adopt measures that could result in the compassionate release of some of
those prisoners.
Unfortunately, the release of ailing inmates has been
anything but compassionate. Due to the slow and cumbersome nature of the
process and high denial rates, many infirm and terminally ill inmates die
waiting on decisions.
According to a recent investigation by The Marshall Project
and the New York Times, from 2013 to 2017, the Federal Bureau of Prisons
approved six percent of the 5,400 applications for compassionate release, while
266 inmates who applied died in custody awaiting a decision.
Congress created compassionate release as a way to release
certain inmates, such as the terminally ill, when it becomes “inequitable” to
keep them in prison any longer. Supporters view the program as a humanitarian
measure and a sensible way to reduce health care costs for ailing and elderly
inmates who pose little risk to public safety, reported the Times.
In 1984, the federal government abolished parole. Instead of
indeterminate sentences, with a minimum and maximum, the feds adopted
determinate sentencing or a flat sentence of specific duration. After
abolishing parole, according to the Times, Congress created compassionate
release as a safety valve, giving judges the power to retroactively cut
sentences short in “extraordinary and compelling” circumstances.
A 2015 study entitled “The United States Compassionate and
Geriatric Release Laws,” found of the 50 states, District of Columbia and
federal government 47 have some legal procedure or precedent for incarcerated
people or their families to petition for early release based on advanced age or
health. Only five corrections systems — Illinois, Massachusetts, South
Carolina, South Dakota, and Utah — do not have statutory schemes for early
release.
California is one of those states with compassionate
release. Inmates who are terminally ill and have six months or less to live, or
those inmates who are incapacitated or in a vegetative state and require
24-hour skilled nursing care, are eligible.
According to the Monterey Bay Justice Project, during a
period of 12 months between 2016 and 2017, in California’s only correctional
hospice unit, 53 qualified inmates applied for compassionate release. “We had
six granted but some died before release,” said Reverend Keith Knauf, director
of Pastoral Care in the Hospice Unit.
The failure to utilize compassionate release to its full
potential has particular importance today.
The U.S. prison population continues to age — the number of
prisoners age 55 or older has more than doubled, while at the same time the
overall prison population has declined by three percent.
At the same time, older prisoners generate about three to
nine times the cost of younger prisoners, as national prison costs have
exceeded more $80 billion a year.
Compassionate release is not only economically sound it is
morally the right thing to do. Terminally ill, handicapped and infirm inmates
are generally not a threat to society and although they have been convicted of
a crime they are entitled to some dignity as they, and their families, deal
with the anguish of failing health and the end of life.
Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett,
Kelly & George P.C. His book The Executioner’s Toll, 2010 was released by
McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him
on Twitter @MatthewTMangino.
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1 comment:
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The headline on Matthew Mangino's opinion below should have read: FEW PRISONERS SHOULD BENEFIT FROM COMPASSIONATE RELEASE. Compassion is an admirable quality probably unique to human beings and we should be wary of those without it. But another quality unique to us is the ability to reason and control our emotions including compassion. Just how compassionate should we be to prisoners, especially the uncompassionate ones? And that's what many seeking this form of early release are. The living conditions of those behind bars in the U.S. are already better than many in this country outside of prison and much better than millions more in other parts of the world.
In Mangino's pursuit of more releases of this type he says, "prison inmates age at an accelerated rate compared to people living outside the walls". Also "it is not a good thing". What does that mean? It probably is not a good thing that they are inmates to begin with. Is his a quest to benefit society economically or does he just feel sorry for the prisoners? From an economic standpoint, the public will most likely be taking care of the prisoner until the prisoner's death whether that death comes inside or outside of prison. And viewing it as a humanitarian measure is where compassion seems to get misplaced.
The primary reasons criminals are sent to prison are (1) to protect the public, (2) rehabilitation and (3) punishment. Punishment shouldn't be the least important of these and certainly should not be substituted with convenience or uncontrolled sympathy regardless of whether the prisoner is no longer thought to be a threat. Punishment is still considered by reasonable people to not only be a payment of debt for one's crime but also a deterrent to crime.
Most opponents of this early-release gesture see the high denial rate not as excessive but probably not high enough, especially where the prisoners' crimes were violent. Where is the compassion for victims and their families who want to see and indeed deserve to have justice administered as though the sentence was something other than a mistake? Why should terminal illness or advanced age play a part in compassion being shown if the uncompassionate people are of the ilk of Manson groupies and murderers Susan Atkins or Leslie Van Houten? Manson himself didn't die at an unusually young age and he died right where he should have died only much later than he should have if one wants to look at it from an economic standpoint.
Life-long sentences for non-violent crimes can be reasonably argued against as unjust and "inequitable" themselves and laws allowing them should be rethought. Rethinking can also be suggested for Congress after they gave judges the power to retroactively cut sentences short in "extraordinary and compelling circumstances" inviting subjectivity to run amok.
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